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Apartment fire kills seven African immigrants

Paris

Posted: Wednesday, August 31, 2005

By Anthony ThomasAssociated Press

PARIS - The apartment building was so run down its owner didn't want it anymore. But like two other Paris buildings recently gutted by deadly fires, it was home to dozens of poor Africans, many of whom were illegal immigrants.

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Firefighters said seven people, including four children, died in Monday night's blaze, the third since April to gut buildings housing foreigners in the French capital.

Among the dead was a 6-year-old boy whose mother threw him out of a fifth-floor window to try to save him from the flames, police said. The bodies of the mother, who was pregnant, and her 3-year-old, were found in the building.

On the same floor, firefighters found a second family: a woman, who was pregnant with twins, her husband and their two children, police said.

Two other people were injured seriously in the latest fire, which ripped through a six-story building in central Paris.

Eleven people, including five firefighters, had slight injuries.

Police said they thought the blaze was accidental, noting numerous fire hazards inside. Residents had pirated electricity from a nearby building. Gas cylinders and mattresses cluttered the floors and had fueled the flames, police said.

Just days ago, a deadly blaze killed 17 Africans in Paris. Four months earlier, 24 people died in a fire at a budget hotel where African immigrants lived, focusing new attention on the plight of Paris' poor.

In that fire, French officials ruled out an electrical short circuit, and raised the possibility Monday that the fire was caused by human actions, suggesting arson or accident. Both buildings were crowded and rundown, official said.

French President Jacques Chirac urged investigators to work diligently to determine the cause of Monday's fire and said the government would take "strong initiatives" soon to help families in inadequate housing.

"I want to stress how much this situation is unworthy of the natural requirements that we owe to people here in France, whatever their origin or nationality," he said.